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Eleven years of eco-resistance

by Shani Laskin on

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The anatomy of Divest McGill’s successful student movement

Written by Shani Laskin, Managing Editor & Designed by Mia Helfrich, Design Editor

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For over a decade, Divest McGill ignited defiance against institutional apathy. The student-led activist group, founded in 2012, took on the task of convincing McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) to withdraw direct investments in the university’s endowment fund from the fossil fuel industry, specifically from the Carbon Underground 200 (CU200)—a list of the world’s top publicly-traded oil, coal, and gas companies based on the potency of their reserves.

Divest McGill used various tactics over 11 years, including sit-ins, walk-outs, petitions, an occupation, and formal presentations to the Board—which has the final say over all university affairs. In the process, the group galvanized thousands of McGill community members. Support for the movement came from both students and staff, including governing bodies such as the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), and even the McGill Senate—the university’s highest democratic governing body. Despite this, the BoG remained steadfast against the demand for divestment.

Following divestment announcements from institutions such as Université Laval (ULaval), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), University of Toronto, and Harvard University, it was clear that McGill was lagging in taking a meaningful stance against the fossil fuel industry.

In Fall 2023, Divest McGill went quiet, in anticipation of a decision from McGill’s BoG.

Then, on Dec. 14, 2023, the BoG approved a motion to divest from direct holdings in CU200 companies. The university had seemingly heeded the calls of dissent.

But what made the BoG change its tune after years of opposition?

Divest’s actions can be understood as a network of pressure on the BoG. Consistent efforts had kept this issue at the forefront of campus consciousness, building awareness as broader trends threatened McGill’s reputation as a leader in sustainability. Divest’s assets were the longevity of the movement, support from the McGill community, ultimately including administration insiders, and just the right amount of reputational damage to the university to make the BoG listen. Though universities are often quick to dismiss student activism, Divest’s successes make it clear that with the right mix of strategy and circumstance, these movements make change.

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Divest McGill started as just a few activists committed to calling for institutional divestment. They saw this approach as both a move toward sustainability and a strong political stance that could chip away at societal acceptance of the fossil fuel industry. At the time, there was little precedent for institutional divestment from fossil fuels in Canada, but calls for change were beginning to emerge.

“It’s about having a clear moral message that profiting off climate change is wrong,” David Summerhays, B.A. ’05 and an original member of Divest, told The Tribune.

The fledgling organization’s first steps were to appeal to the Board and gain community support. Summerhays explained the group’s first petition, pitched to what is now called the Board’s Committee on Sustainability and Social Responsibility (CSSR) in February 2013. They gathered 1,200 signatures for the motion, which called for the Investment Committee to get rid of its holdings in fossil fuels corporations within three years. To keep up the momentum, the group then hosted a Valentine’s Day rally calling for the university to “break up” with fossil fuels—the first of many campus demonstrations. Summerhays explained that the group’s initial actions were light-hearted, aimed at gaining the attention of the McGill community. As the group received rejection after rejection from the administration, however, their actions ramped up.

In April 2013, Divest McGill made its first formal presentation to the Board, outlining the social and environmental reasons that divestment was necessary. One month later, the Board unanimously denied the request. In 2015, Divest submitted a second petition, this time supported by 1,300 signatories and a 150-page report detailing the reasons that fossil fuel investment could constitute “social injury,” mandating the university to divest. The Board rejected this too. Summerhays told The Tribune that part of the group’s strategy following this second rejection was to better understand the Board and cater communications to their interests. According to Summerhays, the group was aided by a McGill administrator at the time, who helped clarify the opaque, bureaucratic processes of the Board.

“We had to both negotiate and get to know the administration and their ideas and sort of build pressure on them,” Summerhays said in an interview with The Tribune. “There just came a point where not only [were these] channels not working but also we just had the support of everybody.”

In the first five years of the campaign, Divest secured the support of the SSMU Legislative Council, PGSS, AUS, hundreds of professors, and many faculties including the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Law. Despite rejections from the administration, the McGill community was beginning to champion an institutional severance from fossil fuels.

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On the national level, divestment grew from a fringe idea into a tangible goal in the mid-2010s as charitable foundations, cities, and cultural, religious, and educational institutions started committing to divesting from fossil fuels.

In 2018, Divest achieved a major victory with an endorsement from the McGill Senate. SSMU President for the 2019-20 school year Bryan Buraga explained in an interview with The Tribune that the university was initially critical and concerned that the Senate was overstepping its purview.

“It actually came in the face of a lot of institutional pushback from the McGill administration, because at the time they were trying to say, ‘Oh, the Senate shouldn’t interfere with the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors is purely financial, whereas the Senate is academic,’” Buraga said. “But through intensive lobbying efforts […], we were able to successfully convince enough of the Senate members to vote in favour of this resolution for the first time, calling upon the Board of Governors to divest and I think that was a really big turning point.”

Buraga explained that SSMU even withheld a student levy for the administration’s Fiat Lux project, using the leverage of student government to express discontent with McGill’s decision to remain invested in fossil fuel companies.

“Admin was very much against fossil fuel divestment, saying that it was the purview of the Board and a lot of the board members are external—the majority of them are with various corporate ties,” Buraga said. “There’s also a paradigm in which politics is outside of the purview of finance. ‘We[’ve] just got to do what’s best, diversify, minimize financial risk, and that also includes investing in fossil fuels.’ That was very much the mentality at the time.”

From 2018 to 2020, rallies ensued even more frequently, including a months-long boycott of Metro Inc. because of BoG member Maryse Betrand’s role on the corporation’s Board of Directors. Around this time in 2019, McGill rejected a third motion to divest. In addition to student mobilization, professors Darin Barney and Derek Nystrom resigned from their positions on the Board due to its refusal to divest, and Greg Mikkelson, a tenured professor in the Bieler School of Environment, resigned from the university entirely.

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“[These are] sustained campaigns,” Ashrafuzzaman said. “[McGill] can’t delay forever. Each [action or news article] chips away at their reputation, which they really love to preserve. Each little action makes some impact, especially when taken broadly in hindsight.”

Then in Fall 2023, Divest organizers received an invitation from a Board member to present again, pushing up the date that the Board had previously committed to reconsidering by two years. It seemed that the internal attitudes of the Board had shifted.

In September, three Divest members made their fourth formal presentation to the Board, this time with an invitation and an additional presentation from Political Science Professor Amy Janzwood. The students presented the moral, scientific, and political basis for divestment, including the precedents set by institutions like ULaval in 2017 and UQÀM in 2019.

“This presentation that we had given was basically done three times before us,” Emily Hardie, U3 Arts, and current Divest member said. “The evidence was already provided for years […] and that just really shows McGill’s continued hesitation to make this decision again—shows their weakness, which is that it’s really reputation that they are prioritizing.”

Janzwood added the financial reasons to divest including changing regulatory landscapes and that the fossil fuel industry in Canada is projected to decline.

“Moral arguments can be very persuasive, particularly around mobilizing students. But divestment is not just a moral issue, it’s also a financial one, and so making that argument, I think, works very nicely with the broader argument about reputational risk,” Janzwood said in an interview with The Tribune.

Janzwood explained that she also relayed the climate anxiety that her students face to the Board.

“I teach exclusively around environmental politics. I teach hundreds of students and every time I teach a course, I ask them how they are related to the climate crisis, how it makes them feel, and I’m always very affected by what they talk about,” Janzwood said. “And so I just concluded by reminding the Board how we are constantly [hearing from] the student body that climate anxiety, despair, dread, these are feelings that my students experience, sometimes on a daily basis.”

Divest’s campaign proved that students take the behind-the-scenes of McGill’s operations seriously, and are willing and able to engage in sustained mobilization for important causes. The movement’s actions set a precedent for the student body’s ability to question the institution’s financial investments and revealed McGill’s pressure points—publicity and reputation—to open avenues for future protest efforts.

“I think [the Board approaches this] sometimes, with the perspective that students are naive about the climate crisis, or naive about how systems work or how decisions like this are made,” Hardie said. “But the perspective that we’re coming from is that we ultimately care very much about preserving life and our collective well-being. And I don’t think it’s us being naive in any sense.”

feature imageLesson Learnedfeature image

“The perennial question for all divestment movements is the implementation, making sure that the university does what it says it will do. Transparency is always a concern,” Janzwood said.

According to the McGill Media Relations Office (MRO), the divestment process has already been completed. The university will detail the transition in a report slated to be released in April 2025.

“Though divestment from the McGill Investment Pool (MIP)’s minimal remaining direct CU200 holdings sends an important symbolic message, McGill has long held that maximizing its impact means minimizing its carbon footprint,” the MRO wrote to The Tribune. “This has involved shareholder engagement with companies on decarbonization targets, and focusing divestment efforts on firms that may not extract fossil fuels directly but use them in highly emissions-intensive industries (cement and steel manufacturers, coal and gas-fired electricity generators, and other firms that drive global fossil fuel demand).”

For student organizers such as Lola Milder, U3 Arts, and Hardie, the next steps are still unclear. To many organizers, however, Divest’s journey revealed what they see as an undemocratic structure of decision-making at the university.

“Especially because when so many hundreds, thousands of student hours have gone into asking these institutions, these forums, like the Board of Governors to divest […] you start to ask, maybe my hours are better spent trying to actually change the shape of this system,” Milder said. “Because right now, it seems like it does not bend to the community’s will or interest.”

What is noteworthy, however, is the success and longevity of Divest. Student movements are notoriously complicated due to high turnover as new students join and veteran organizers graduate. By sustaining the campaign, Divest McGill sent a clear message that the university can not simply wait out one cohort of passionate activists. Rather, the Board had to reckon with persistent student demands and the reality that divestment was a viable pathway.

“Divest McGill is a long-standing campaign [….] It was very visible, it was very sustained. These are hard things to do,” Janzwood said. “[With] student turnover, it is hard to keep the institutional memory alive.”

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While students’ time at university is short, McGill’s eventual divestment from the CU200 shows that this time can still make an impact lasting long after graduation. Divest’s goal was lofty; one that the university may not have achieved had it not been for years of pressure, spearheaded by students called to fiercely question their institution.

Letters to the Editor, Opinion

What is Coming is Greater: Gaza’s Victory and the Fight for Divestment

by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) at McGill on

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Facing a genocidal siege, isolated entirely from the outside world, Gaza stood tall and unyielding for 466 days, imposing its own conditions of victory onto the occupier. On Oct. 7, 2023, Gazans broke down the colonial border fences surrounding their city for the first time in a historical confrontation against an occupying force. Over the following 15 months, Gaza’s unbreakable resistance to invasion, bombardment, and siege secured this legacy. Earned through popular struggle, last week’s ceasefire agreement is a culmination of all 76-plus years of ongoing resistance against Zionist occupation—a victory for all oppressed and colonized peoples across the world, cementing Gaza as a permanent thorn in Western colonial ambitions. We breathe a sigh of relief at the thought of our people finally able to rest, rebuild, and continue their fight. We honour all the brave martyrs who stood tall in the face of genocidal aggression. Our martyrs are heroes of a rare kind, and to them we owe the world.

We must now turn our attention to rising aggression on the West Bank, particularly in the resilient city of Jenin, known as “Gaza’s sister in resistance.” As of writing, the Israeli Occupation Forces have commenced their “Iron Wall” operation on Jenin, attempting to isolate the city and eradicate the armed resistance within. The spectre of genocidal violence, as illustrated within Gaza, looms over Jenin, as well as the whole West Bank. Furthermore, Israeli expansionist efforts are not limited to Palestine. The Zionist project, in alliance with the United States, continues its plans to expand its violence towards the broader Middle East, through occupations of Lebanon, invasions into Syria, bombings of Yemen, and threats towards Iran. 

As the resistance in Gaza shattered Israel’s façade as a “beacon of liberal democracy” in the Middle East, so too did it illuminate the deep contradictions within our own university. Through increasingly desperate acts of repression, our McGill administrators have exposed their rabid commitment to profit and donor influence. Every disciplinary action, incident of police brutality, and million spent on public relations, private security, or lawsuits is proof of a long-lost battle to maintain public opinion against a student-led movement that has long since proven its resilience. 

While our administration redirects student effort towards existing bureaucratic channels and false promises to “explore the question of divestment,” they have simultaneously ignored and undermined these same channels. Notably, our administration’s repeated interference in student governance has resulted in the overturning of initiatives like the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine and the removal of Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) as a McGill-affiliated student organization. Our student union has the potential to be a strong proponent of student demands for divestment, but through repeated legal threats facilitated under the Memorandum of Agreement, the McGill administration put massive pressure on our union, creating an atmosphere of inaction, depoliticization, and fear within student democracy. 

It is more important than ever that the student movement stays mobilized, drawing strength from the steadfast people of Gaza to guide the fight here in the West, where our governments and institutions remain cogs in the settler occupation of Palestine. Over the past 15 months, we have drawn pivotal lessons from the heroic people of Palestine and each other, informing our strategies as we move forward. As the student movement enters this new chapter, our role is to etch the struggle for Palestinian liberation, return, and dignity into the history of McGill. Building on these lessons, we look to strong mass student coalitions, collective participation in demonstrations, and student governance as the tools of a prolonged fight for divestment. We eagerly anticipate student mobilization in the coming months, ensuring the Palestinian struggle for liberation and the heroic people of Gaza remain the north star of the student movement, settling for nothing less than total divestment, full academic boycott and an end to military research at McGill. What is coming is greater. 

Sports

No joking around as Martlets soar to victory in the Jesters University League

by Zain Ahmed on

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The McGill Women’s Squash team captured their second straight Jesters League championship on Jan. 18 in a dramatic finale against the University of Toronto (UofT), showcasing both their competitive excellence and remarkable team spirit. The victory represents another milestone in the program’s extraordinary growth over the past four years, achieved entirely through student leadership, community spirit, and sheer determination. 

Team captain Chloe Stoneburgh, U4 Management, sat down with The Tribune for an interview. 

“It’s literally two completely different things, when I came into then versus what it is now. [In 2020] I stumbled across tryouts on Facebook halfway through the year, and they were still looking for people because they couldn’t even form a team,” she said. 

From those humble beginnings, the program has transformed into a formidable force in collegiate squash, bringing home the Jesters League trophy in both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.

The championship-deciding competition against UofT epitomized the team’s journey, coming down to the final match with the teams deadlocked at 3-3. The tension was palpable as both teams gathered to watch the decisive first-seed matchup, long after other universities had departed. Team member Lialah Mavani, U2 Arts, flew in from British Columbia specifically for the tournament, demonstrating the extraordinary commitment that has become the team’s hallmark.

However, despite success, McGill Squash faces a unique challenge: As a club team, they are unable to advance to the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) playoffs, despite competing against and defeating varsity programs throughout the regular season. 

Ava Bicknell, U3 Arts, is a team captain currently on exchange in London. 

“We can get by, we take ourselves to games, we pay our coaches, we organize our accommodation. All we really need is the varsity title to gain access to the OUA,” she told The Tribune.

The team’s recent achievements are particularly noteworthy given their entirely student-run operation. Without varsity status, they handle everything from fundraising and alumni relations to practice scheduling and logistics. 

Their success stems from what Stoneburgh describes as “the intrinsic push from student leaders” and a culture that sees near-perfect practice attendance despite no formal requirements.

“There’s a fight that comes from knowing that we’re at this disadvantage; we have great players and we can win,” Stoneburgh explained. “I think there’s this little bit of gritty feist that comes with knowing that we can win, we fight on and off the court with a chip on our shoulders. We have a point to prove.”

The program, which held varsity status until 2010 when it was released from the varsity program, likely due to budget cuts, has demonstrated remarkable growth through strategic initiatives such as social media presence, alumni engagement, and successful fundraising campaigns. Their recent achievements suggest immense potential for development, particularly if granted the opportunity to compete at the highest level.

“We’re hoping that it’ll boost our reputation even more. Obviously as an academic school, but maybe even being considered for playing competitive squash. That wasn’t really a thing before, and now, with these wins under our belt, we’re hoping that gives recognition,” Bicknell said. 

Men’s captain, Mo Kamal, U3 Science, emphasized that the women’s success stems from their team chemistry. He was particularly impressed by the team’s performance in the championship match.

“One thing that really stood out was the passion they brought to every moment. They got into a zone where they truly peaked, pushing themselves to battle through some incredibly close matches,” Kamal said.

Speaking to the program’s evolution, Kamal reflected on the broader impact of women’s achievements.

“The women’s team’s success is especially meaningful because it highlights the incredible growth of McGill squash. The program has transformed; the women’s team’s great results have played a huge role in driving that change,” Kamal said. 

Individual players from McGill Squash will compete in the Canadian University and Collegiate Squash Championships, hosted at McGill from March 14-16.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

MCGE Lilith Fair lights up the night

by Dana Prather on

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Faced with the frigid winter winds and 5:00 p.m. sunsets of January in Montreal, spending a Wednesday evening staying in, staying warm, and staving off the mid-week slump may seem inevitable. Yet on Jan. 15, over 250 students and community members braved the elements and gathered in La Sala Rossa to attend the McGill Collective for Gender Equality’s (MCGE) Lilith Fair, a night of live music inspired by the groundbreaking feminist music festival of the same name.

The original Lilith Fair was a watershed moment for women in music. Conceived and helmed by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, the touring summer festival featured a lineup of all-women musicians such as the Indigo Girls, Alanis Morissette, and Tracy Chapman. In doing so, the festival aimed to defy the music industry’s misogynistic tendency to pit women against each other and instead cultivate a supportive community of artists and a concert environment free from sexual harassment. 

Critiques of the festival’s ethos were plentiful. Some were merited—the festival’s first lineup was overwhelmingly white—while others were clearly steeped in homophobia and misogyny. Still, Lilith Fair was an unquestionable success; despite only running for three summers between 1997 and 1999, Lilith Fair grossed over $52 million USD. 

To honour the festival’s legacy, co-organizers Dre Pupovac, U2 Arts, and Alex Leitman, U2 Science, recruited five local acts—Revi my Beloved, Lane Ellis, Clothilde, Hanako, and Frown Line— fronted by women and non-binary artists to co-headline the event. From the audience’s excited buzz, as Pupovac introduced the event, it was clear that Lilith Fair’s mission continues to resonate deeply. 

“We’re living in times in which we’re watching as women right across the border are fearing for their reproductive healthcare/education rights and feeling as though they’ve lost control over what happens to their own bodies,” Revi wrote in a message to The Tribune, reflecting on the importance of the festival.  “As long as women feel threatened or powerless, creating safe spaces for women will always be important, even if it’s just to listen to rock music.” 

The first act saw Revi my Beloved’s driving drum beats and infectious energy set the tone for what was sure to be a wild evening. The audience cheered. The stage lights flashed. Then, the room went dark. 

What we would soon discover was a neighbourhood-wide power outage had brought the event to a screeching halt. However, the organizers quickly sprang into action.

“In the moment, I kind of just locked into problem-solving mode, so I didn’t have time to think too much,” explained Pupovac. “It was just, like, okay—what do we do?” 

Within minutes, MCGE volunteers had illuminated Lane Ellis with their phone flashlights as the singer performed acoustic versions of her own songs and a stunning rendition of  “Linger” by The Cranberries. The organizers then invited anyone who wanted to hop onstage and sing to do so, leading to an impromptu singalong until they announced the event’s postponement. 

Eager to host Lilith Fair as intended and allow the remaining acts the chance to perform, the organizers worked tirelessly to reschedule, and just four days later, the event was back up and running. Despite the slightly lower turnout, audiences were just as enthusiastic, if not more, the second time around. Ellis’ airy tones and introspective lyrics had lent themselves well to a stripped-back performance, but hearing her songs as intended provoked raucous cheers from the crowd. By contrast, Hanako’s, U2 Arts, blend of folk and dream pop left the room in a reverent hush. Lilith Fair officially wrapped up just after midnight, leaving a tired, beaming crowd to disperse into the chilly night, chatting about when the next Lilith Fair might be. 

“If [women and other marginalized groups] want safe spaces, […] no one’s gonna do it for us,” Avery Albert, a community member who came out to support both versions of the event, reflected.  “We really have to cultivate those spaces [ourselves].” 

News

Supreme Court of Canada denies Mohawk Mothers’ appeal

by Jasjot Grewal on

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The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal from the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) on Jan. 15. The Mothers filed a motion with the Court on Oct. 15, seeking a comprehensive investigation into possible unmarked graves at the site of McGill’s New Vic Project, and a reinstatement of the court-appointed archeological panel that previously oversaw the investigation. 

Since 2015, the Mohawk Mothers have been advocating against the construction and renovation of the New Vic Project, as it is located on the land of the former Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH). The hospital was the site of the Allan Memorial Institute—one of many locations across North America on which the CIA conducted MK-ULTRA mind control and chemical interrogation experiments. On April 6, 2023, the Mothers reached a historic settlement agreement with McGill, the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI), RVH, the City of Montreal, and the Attorney General of Canada, which mandated the archival and archeological investigation into the site of the New Vic Project. As per the agreement, this investigation would take place under the oversight of a court-mandated panel of archeologists jointly appointed by all parties. 

In August 2023, the Mothers alleged that McGill disbanded the archeological panel before the investigation had been completed. However, McGill maintains that the panel dissolved after completing its mandate and issuing a final report in July 2023. In November 2023, Justice Gregory Moore ruled to reinstate the panel of archaeologists. In an interview with The Tribune, Mohawk Mother Kwetiio explained what she believed was Justice Moore’s reasoning behind the decision, emphasizing the importance of having a group of third-party archeologists overseeing the investigation. 

“In my understanding, [Justice] Moore agreed with our understanding of the settlement agreement we all signed provided for […] this panel of unbiased professionals who actually run their own working group on unmarked graves. They are the professionals at it. They are the best at it. They were to oversee the project and give recommendations that we were to follow,” Kwetiio said.

McGill successfully appealed this decision in August 2024 at the Court of Appeal of Quebec. The Mohawk Mothers hoped to reverse the Court’s decision at the Supreme Court of Canada, but were denied. 

Kwetiio shared that while she was not surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision, she still believes that the panel’s mandate persists. 

“It was not unexpected [….] I didn’t think that the system that got us in this predicament in the first place was going to be the system to get us out,” she said. “In our eyes, the panel never went anywhere. They still exist.” 

Phillippe Blouin—an anthropologist and associate of the Mothers—emphasized to The Tribune that even though the Mothers’ appeal was denied, the case and investigation remain ongoing. However, he noted that Independent Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray’s mandate has expired, leaving a fundamental gap in the Canadian legal system’s representation and justice processes for Indigenous folks. Murray was previously involved in the Mothers’ and McGill’s settlement agreement as a third-party mediator. 

“Indigenous peoples are just left alone to fight within this court system with infinite hours of work while the opponents invest public money and tuition money into lawyers using procedural tricks to push back against their claim,” Blouin said. “This is just a case of proving, again, what Kimberly Murray demonstrates in her final report, that there’s a settler amnesty that is enshrined within Canadian law, which makes it almost impossible to make any institution or person accountable for these crimes.”

Blouin believes that emote sensing methods used on the site have found potential evidence, including the three targets identified by search dogs, and several potential grave zones. Despite this, McGill still maintains no evidence has been found—as stated on their communications page for the New Vic Project—meaning that bodies would have to be exhumed to prove their existence. 

 “Since work on the New Vic project has been launched, No human remains, unmarked grave indicators or anomalies of any sort have been found,” McGill’s Media Relations Office wrote to The Tribune.

For Blouin, the Mothers’ ultimate goal is to investigate any potential graves and protect survivors of colonial violence.

“The Mothers are doing this for the truth only. That is their only objective. Denialism […] and asking Indigenous people to effectively dig the grounds to show the actual bodies—this is extremely disrespectful,” he said. “No one would ask that of a white person, to go dig their ancestors in the ground to prove that they’re there.”

Behind the Bench, Soccer, Sports

English FA’s decision to scrap cup replays means less economic parity than ever

by Ethan Kahn on

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The Football Association Cup (FA Cup) is the most prestigious domestic tournament in European football. Comprised of teams throughout the tiers of the English football pyramid—from local semi-pro players who participate for fun to the biggest powerhouses of Europe—squads compete in a single-elimination tournament to determine which is the best team in the United Kingdom. Some of the greatest moments in the competition’s history come from David vs. Goliath stories, where the great teams of the country are upended by teams far below them in skill level and ranking. The most famous example is Wigan’s improbable triumph against Manchester City in the 2013 final. 

Wigan’s incredible journey would not be possible without replays, which occur when a game in the tournament ends in a tie. The teams then play another game against one another to decide who advances. Controversially, this past summer, the FA made the decision to do away with cup replays, replacing them with traditional extra time and penalties.

January nearly saw another historic upset, when Vanarama National League (fifth-tier) side Tamworth F.C. played host to perennial Premier League title contenders Tottenham Hotspur. Tottenham were the favourites in the third-round match-up but soon realized that breaking down Tamworth was easier said than done. The home side went into the game with the confidence of a team that has nothing to lose, and defended their goal bravely, with the game tied 0-0 after 90 minutes of play.

This is where the controversy comes into the fold. The decision to get rid of replays was made in conversation with Premier League teams and stemmed from their desire to lessen the load of an increasingly burdensome schedule. Top teams can play upwards of 60 games depending on how far they progress in certain competitions. Disturbingly, the lower-tier teams, who receive the most benefits from replays, were not able to give input on the decision to do away with them.  

That would have meant tiny Tamworth would have had a chance to play in front of more than 60,000 fans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. Besides the incredible experience for both players and fans, the game would have a massive economic benefit for the club: Since home and away sides both take 45 per cent of revenue from ticket sales, Tamworth would be in line to make over £800,000 (more than $1.4 million CAD) following the away game. Considering the fact that Tamworth’s 2024 revenue was £1.6 million, this would have been a crucial economic boost to the club. With an increased emphasis on economic power in the modern game, Tamworth would have been poised to put the funds towards improving their squad.

The decision to do away with cup replays does not just have an economic impact on smaller teams, but it places them at a disadvantage over the course of a game that goes into extra time. Bigger clubs have more squad depth, with more talented bench players than the lower league teams. According to Transfermarkt, the six substitutes that Tottenham brought on over the course of the game had a combined transfer value of around $335 million CAD, which is hundreds of times larger than the value of Tamworth’s entire team. This sort of disparity is exacerbated after 90 gruelling minutes.

In an increasingly polarized footballing world, where top teams are able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and lower league squads are left out to dry, the FA has embraced the changing tides and aligned themselves fully with the interests of the largest clubs in England. It is disheartening for the players, supporters, and owners of clubs like Tamworth who are left to fend for themselves in a climate that is rigged against them from the start, and this decision will send shockwaves throughout the English football pyramid by stunting the economic growth of small clubs even further.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

David Lynch’s eternal worlds of surreal, torturous beauty

by Annabella Lawlor on

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How does one memorialize a life? Through the images they have created or traces they have left behind? How can one encapsulate an entire legacy from the ashes of bodily presence? Treading in the wake of David Lynch’s recent passing, our world can reconstruct these traces from his transcendental cultural voice, his poignant and subversive narratives, and his eternal mark on the world of contemporary cinema. 

Having been trained as a painter in university, Lynch’s cinematic career began with his 1967 short film Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times), stemming from his desire to witness his creations in motion. It’s a jarring and elusive piece that set in stone decades of poetic nonconformance to the cinematic form. With his painterly past, Lynch frames each shot as if an oiled canvas, shaded by the intense threat of the looming, chiaroscuro-ed darkness. 

In Lost Highway, shadows become a palpable character within each scene, caressing disillusioned expressions of the characters’ gazes and the arching corridors of each shot’s background. Rich in pigment and cinematically expansive, his worlds inhabit the ruinous crevices of our own environment, twisting the figments of our reality into landscapes of surreal inhumanity, and thus manufacturing his films as depraved mirrors of America’s abhorrent corruption and nightmarish truth.

There is an elegiac quality to the disturbing nature of Lynch’s cinematic imagery and narratives. 1977’s Eraserhead’s visually gut-wrenching depiction of the aching fears of unexpected fatherhood illustrates a kindness within monstrosity and a bleakness in conventional humanness. Though visually barbaric in its finale, is a father’s greatest fear not the total unravelling and subsequent death of a child? By submitting his narrative to complete abstraction, Lynch encapsulates the violent, burdening emotionality of bearing parental responsibility. He treats his characters with such grace, allowing the full spectrum of their emotions to be rendered on screen: The gross, the extravagant, the sexual, the intense, the immoral—they all intersect in his larger vision of the world. There is an emotional purity that filters through a “caught” idea, no matter how nauseating or cruel.

In an early interview, Lynch stated, “Ideas are so beautiful and they’re so abstract. And they do exist someplace—I don’t know that there’s a name for it. I think they exist, like fish. And I believe that if you sit quietly, like you’re fishing, you will catch ideas. The real, beautiful big ones swim deep down there so you have to be really quiet and wait for them to come along.”

His worlds are mind-bending and emotionally disconcerting, as if existing within mere miles of another desolate landscape in the Lynchian cinematic universe. The elusive town of Twin Peaks, Washington—from the eponymous franchise—is perhaps Lynch’s most fully realized surrealist environment. Hidden within the seeming tranquillity of the suburban town lies traumatic abstractions of murder, arson, and incest. Twin Peaks cinematically embodies the architectural ideals of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or the “total work of art,” moving a viewer into total immersion with its creeping synthesizers, plaid-skirted characters, and assaulting pigmented visual qualities. 

David Lynch would likely wish for me to finish this piece with a disturbingly close distortion of Laura Dern’s digitally altered, leering grin, but it feels right to end how much of his films do: With a deep realization of the institutionalized falsities of human nature—the idea that the power of unflinching, pure, depraved creativity overcomes the insistent challenges of our utopian-contemporary world. His visionary mind scars my life with such intense meaning, like so many others who have had the privilege of witnessing his films. His accomplishments aren’t only apparent in the recent adjectivization of his last name, but from his endless creative influence on the vastness of visual culture. There will never be anyone as authentically weird, linguistically Midwestern, and boisterously himself as David Lynch.

Local Stories, Student Life

The ups and downs of living with friends

by Simona Culotta and Zoya Mirza on

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Transitioning from living in our family’s home to sharing a space with peers is already a dramatic shift and challenge to navigate. On top of this, we tend to choose the people who we most get along with or enjoy the presence of—our friends. While the idea of living with your best friends can be exciting at first, it doesn’t take long for the honeymoon phase to fizzle out as you discover each other’s quirks, habits, and, inevitably, flaws.

With this in mind, we wanted to explore how McGill students navigate living with their friends long-term, and the real question—if they recommend it. Exchange student Manuela Almenara talked about her experience living with four other girls who also happen to be her friends from back home in Madrid, who decided to do an exchange program at McGill together.

“We’re all friends, so we’re less nitpicky with things and more at ease with each other—we all know each other very well. We’re doing the exchange program together, we’re in it together and are able to work things out,” Almenara said.

Almenara emphasized that living with friends is beneficial for her because their shared history allows them to better adapt to each other’s preferences and resolve issues more smoothly.

Ollie Scott-Hansen, U1 Arts, also talked about the positive side of living with your friends.

“I feel like it helps with problem-solving a lot more as we know each other well and know that nothing is really ever that deep,” Scott-Hansen told The Tribune.

Despite Scott-Hansen and Almenara’s positive experiences, other students had rockier times living with their close friends. Shumyle Shahid, U1 Arts, emphasized how problems actually arose more easily because she chose friends for roommates:

“I feel that it contributed to more conflict as small issues can have overly emotional resonance,” she said.  “I would advise myself to trust my gut and look at long-term practicality rather than short-term fun. I would also advise myself to never live with best friends.”

Looking back, Shahid highlighted the discomfort that can arise when bringing up issues, such as messes or noise, with roommates who are also your friends. It adds a layer of complexity, as emotions and the health of the friendship must be considered when addressing roommate-specific issues. 

Almenara emphasized that, in situations like this, it’s key to maintain solid boundaries and clear expectations—even with the best of friends.

“We’re friends, but at the end of the day, we’re also roommates, and it’s important to keep that line clear and respect certain things,” Almenara said.

She also mentioned how she learned patience, noting that it’s an important skill to develop when living with roommates, regardless of whether they’re good friends. 

Ammie Dae, U1 Arts, who chose unknown roommates, shared her perspective on navigating this unique living arrangement. She learned to emphasize clear communication, given how unfamiliar she was with her roommates. Although she noted that this was a skill that takes practice, she still has room for improvement. 

“Honestly, to be more firm about communicating my dissatisfactions, I may not always have another roommate willing to deal with it on my behalf,” Almenara said.

Dae also noted that shared rules promote respect and prevent one roommate from bearing the responsibility of addressing issues alone.

Many of the issues we worry about or hesitate to bring up with our roommates often aren’t as daunting as they seem. As suggested by Scott-Hansen, effective communication can go a long way in improving everyone’s experience and well-being in the house.

“Always trust your gut. If something doesn’t feel right, do something about it, don’t ignore it. If something bothers you, do something. It doesn’t take much to solve small problems that seem big,” Scott-Hansen added.

Cross-Country / Track, Sports

Redbirds jumper reflects on track’s successful UOttawa Winter Classic

by Nour Khouri on

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“We’re really breaking it down to the essence of what makes an athlete,” is how Robbie Gertsner, a first-year Masters student in Physics, describes his sport of track and field. Through the wide variety of events offered in track and field, these demonstrations of human strength and skill are all present under the umbrella of a single sport. For Gertsner, the beauty of track and field lies in the fact that it places raw athleticism centre-stage.

On Jan.18, the McGill University Track Team achieved remarkable success at the uOttawa Winter Classic. The Martlets and Redbirds secured three gold medals each, cementing their reputation as dominant competitive forces. Beyond the medals, the men’s track team etched their names into McGill history by breaking a nine-year-old school record in the men’s 4×800-metre relay. The team, composed of athletes Sean Adams, Ben Gates, Samuel Hepworth, and Devin Chapple, completed the race in an astonishing seven minutes and 37.9 seconds. This performance narrowly eclipsed the previous record of seven minutes and 38.96 seconds, set on Feb. 26, 2016, by a mere 1.06 seconds.

Despite these impressive accomplishments, Gertsner feels track and field does not always receive the recognition it deserves at McGill. 

“Track can go under the radar a little bit, especially at McGill,” he says. “It’s not at the forefront of our sports.”

However, he remains hopeful that moments like these will help raise the profile of McGill’s track athletes and bring greater attention to their dedication and achievements.

Still riding the adrenaline from his recent performance at the 28th Annual McGill Team Challenge, where he broke his personal best in the 60-metre run, Gertsner is already looking ahead to what’s next for his team. When asked about the possibility of bringing home a championship banner, he expressed confidence in their chances. 

“I think we have a pretty good shot at the [Réseau du sport étudiant du québec] RSEQ, which is the Quebec provincial championship,” he shared. “Coming into this weekend, the men’s team was ranked first in the RSEQ, and if we continue to push this momentum, I think we’ll have a really good chance.”

However, when asked about his experiences at McGill’s track team compared to Western University, where he completed his undergraduate program, he highlighted a reality far too familiar across most athletic endeavours at McGill: The lack of team cohesion.

“If I’m being completely honest, I wish that we had more of a collective team spirit,” he says. “When I was at Western’s track team, which has consistently been one of the top teams in the country, we had a very collective team dynamic, which is not quite at that level here at McGill.”  

Gertsner believes that for the team to truly gain the edge over competitors, team members should invest themselves in events they are not used to and make an effort to watch their teammates compete and learn about their successes, which can do much good for the team’s results.

“For example, myself as a jumper, I don’t really know much about the distance or throwing events, but if I take the effort in learning what type of distances and times they are running and throwing,” he said. “I think that’s the key in pushing yourself outside your niche group because that’s what connects us all.” 

However, Gertsner admitted that he has noticed developments: “Now that the season and races have started, it has improved, and people are cheering for each other.”

With the track and field season far from over, the Redbirds and Martlets have time to prove their efforts in forming a stronger team collective and perhaps even bring the Quebec Provincial Championships banner back home. 

Science & Technology

Perfectionism: A blessing or a curse?

by Sarah McDonald on

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At first glance, being a perfectionist may seem like an advantage in a world where productivity and achievement are so highly valued. As a student, what could possibly be better than having the drive to ensure everything you do is done perfectly? 

As it turns out, recent research shows that perfectionism isn’t the asset it might appear to be. This is especially true when it takes on the form of self-critical (SC) perfectionism, which can have detrimental impacts on mental health. SC perfectionism is characterized by constant negative self-evaluations, doubts about one’s abilities, and fixations on mistakes. Personal standards (PS) perfectionism, on the other hand, focuses on achieving goals and having high standards rather than being overly self-critical.

David Dunkley is an associate professor at McGill’s Department of Psychology and a researcher at the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital who is interested in the impacts of perfectionism on well-being. 

“Perfectionism is about setting and striving for high standards and goals, and in itself, it’s not maladaptive,” Dunkley explained in an interview with The Tribune. “It’s the self-critical aspects of perfectionism that are more closely associated with depression and anxiety symptoms.”

One of his students, Alexandra Richard, recently published a doctoral dissertation on the relationship between long-term self-critical perfectionism and symptoms of anxiety and depression in the journal Behavioural Therapy.

Under Dunkley’s supervision, Richard conducted a study that focused on two key manifestations involved in SC perfectionism: Anxiety sensitivity, which is the fear of interpreting physical symptoms of anxiety as signs of being physically or mentally unwell, and experiential avoidance, which is the tendency to try to avoid or suppress unpleasant thoughts or emotions.

Researchers collected data on the participants’ levels of SC and PS perfectionism, symptoms of anxiety and depression, experiential avoidance, and anxiety sensitivity at several points over two years, to investigate the complex relationships between these variables.

Richard’s research uncovered significant links between these manifestations and long-term symptoms of anxiety and depression. The study’s findings suggest that by addressing these specific tendencies, it’s possible to reduce the impact that SC perfectionism has on mental health.

The research found that anxiety sensitivity enhances the vulnerability of SC perfectionists who have high levels of experiential avoidance to symptoms of distress, and vice versa. Interestingly, while anxiety sensitivity was a risk factor primarily for symptoms of anxiety, experiential avoidance appears to be a broader risk factor, influencing participants’ levels of general distress as well as anxiety.

“What this study showed was that it is possible to be high on self-critical perfectionism, but not necessarily high on experiential avoidance or anxiety sensitivity [.…] If you can lower [the levels of] just one of those emotion regulation patterns, you’ll be less vulnerable to depressive and anxious symptoms,” Dunkley explained.

It is also important to note that these findings are only relevant to SC perfectionists; PC participants exhibited no or weak correlations between these variables.

These quantitative findings are in line with prior work on the pathology of perfectionism, and suggest that therapeutic interventions should focus on treating tendencies like anxiety sensitivity and experiential avoidance in order to improve outcomes for SC perfectionists.

The study additionally suggests that different types of perfectionism require different types of interventions. For those with SC perfectionism, introspective practices like mindfulness and self-compassion are found to be particularly helpful.

“This is important work that challenges arguments that anxiety sensitivity and experiential avoidance capture the same process, and also parallels clinical work where targeting and decoupling the co-occurrence of two related processes can be an important treatment goal,” Richard explained in an email to The Tribune.

Ultimately, the findings of Richard’s study show us that, while there is still more research to be done, being a SC perfectionist does not automatically lead to depression and anxiety. While we may not be able to control perfectionistic tendencies, there are strategies to limit the negative impact this form of perfectionism has on mental health. The study reminds us that there are ways to manage and improve well-being, even in a world that constantly pushes for perfection.

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